Baby Daddy Season 3 Episode 9 ~ Go Brit or Go Home

2x11 Rewatch: Ko No Mono

Gif set can be found here.

2x10's end scene doubles with 2x11's opening. I'm saving those for a season three rewatch post. The bird-eating scene comes off rather sexual. "I don't hide from God." Hannibal has no reason to. He believes God created him in His image, and He collapses church roofs, so why bother. Hannibal was euphoric when he ate his first ortolan. Playing God... power over life and death. Best time for Will to bring up Freddie. "You must understand that blood and breath are only elements undergoing change to fuel your radiance. Just as the source of light is burning." Hannibal's Motto. He's trying to push Will to go full lion. Hannibal's comment gave Will a light bulb moment. You can see it in his response. His turn for peacocking, as I made mention when Abel went after Dr. Chilton before his date with the Ripper. Will is trying to impress Hannibal. Claiming to kill Freddie is one thing. He basically uses her fake murder to show Hannibal he's ready to push forward in his becoming, and at the same time, gives him reason to trust taking off his person suit by pulling a false match on Freddie's dental records. Will is most certainly doing this with Freddie because he's looking forward to putting Hannibal in prison for Abigail's murder. "Freddie had a longing to be noticed. She was noticed." Hannibal follows him as they've done in front of Jack several times before. "He's the one to be noticed now." Hannibal believes Will is giving him what he's wanted all along... the lion, full flame. "Freddie Lounds had to burn. She was fuel. Fire destroys and it creates. It is mythical. She won't rise from the ashes, but her killer will." 

Will is VERY upset that Margot is pregnant. He's staring off in silence as she and Hannibal talk. I didn't think anything of Will's comment and Margot's response on my first watch of this series until I hit Francis' storyline. Once I hit Hannibal's comment in 3x9, I knew. Will trusted having sex with her because she made him believe she was on birth control. I don't believe Hannibal planned for Margot to turn to Will to get pregnant, but he most certainly knows how Will feels about having children of his own. "A stepson absolves you of any biological blame. You know better than to breed. Can't pass on those terrible traits you fear the most." Will sweats it out from a nightmare. Not sure the purpose of it because he didn't kill Freddie and they used a male stunt double for the scene. But his scenes with Alana in this episode are hilarious. I love the way Will basically slams the door in her face. He cares about her, but he's still pissed. She didn't believe him before. Now she's at his door, believing he killed Freddie. 

A lot of this is setting up for season three. Hannibal reminds Mason that his father is dead. You see that about his character... how he was not only educated by his father, but is quite driven to make him proud. Definitely a daddy's boy, that's why Mason talks about him so much. Hannibal sends him on the path to take Margot's unborn child. Full intent there. He wants Will to kill Mason, to push the lion even more. Will is having trouble wrapping his head around this baby. That's why he's only anticipating attachment. Different for Abigail, and it shows. I think this is when Hannibal realized Will wanted a non-biological child. He asked him about the baby, but Will responded with Abigail. "I still dream about Abigail. I dream that I'm... teaching her how to fish." He cares more about her, and he's most certainly hoping to arrest her killer. He’s heartbroken, and Hannibal does nothing to ease his pain. He actually fuels it with his comments. The teacup that comes together in this scene is for Abigail. 

Hannibal pulls up Freddie's fake body. "She won't rise from the ashes, but her killer will." Alana's comment is all you need, and take note Will's response to it. Showing their love for each other out in the open. Don't underestimate Alana as a profiler. She's spot-on with Will, pre-pilot and now. The lion always fantasized about killing, but he was trained to suppress his instincts. She realizes he's now being guided to act on them. "It's a courtship." Two deadly wildcats. Hannibal speaks of Will's becoming, and he responds with questions because he's angry at Hannibal for sacrificing Abigail for the sake of it. Their scene here is quite something. Every time Will speaks of Abigail, Hannibal pisses him off even more. 

"I have no confidence that I know Hannibal Lecter anymore. Even with as much as you know or think you know Hannibal, you don't know him either. And you don't know Will. You are going to lose, Jack! If you haven't lost already." Forehadowing the very end of the series, but it's Francis' storyline that makes it possible. Will's scene with Mason is sexy. The way he checks out his pig set-up, knowing very well what it's used for, beats the hell out of him and threatens him with a gun. Will knows what Hannibal wants. He’d rather put Hannibal in the position to kill Mason or die because he wants to arrest him. "Dr. Lecter is the one you want to be feeding to your pigs." Will is pissed as hell.

"He endured death as a lamb; he devoured it as a lion." - Augustine

Shiva is perfect for this episode, for Will's character. "He has a benefactor who admires his destruction." The lamb is laid waste to give rise to the lion. When you watch the series finale, refer back to this episode, to Shiva. That's why they go with fire for Francis and they set Dr. Chilton on fire. Will's false becoming to his real becoming. What your'e left with is a repeat of S3, but the players on the board are different. Instead of Hannibal taking off with Bedelia and attempting to eat Will, he takes off with Will and eats Bedelia. Push forward from there with Jack, Alana, and Dr. Chilton... and whatever roles they’d play. But yeah... what you see of Hannibal and Will during Francis’ storyline... they’re picking up where they left off in their courtship. That’s why Will asks Bedelia if Hannibal is in love with him. Allowing Will to act as bait to catch Hannibal was Jack’s mistake. Because Will is most certainly a killer, and he’s connecting with Hannibal in the process. 

The parallels reveal the playout. From surrogate daughter Abigail to surrogate daughter Mischa. From sister Margot back to sister Mischa. It’s the very reason Will doesn’t take off with Hannibal. I love this episode because it pushes back to 2x12 with Mason, then forward to Achilles and Patroclus on the cliff. Racking up the pain since 3x2, Will's human nature wanted the pain to stop, so he tried to kill Hannibal. Surrogate daughter to surrogate daughter. In this episode, Mason decides it wise to poke the beast within. He talks to Will about his tusked friend gutting him. It's the wendigo's instinct to disembowel. As Chilton said, "with these two, that's tantamount to flirtation." Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and restored it to humanity. Perfect placement. What happens when humanity plans to use that stolen fire to sizzle his wendigo friend... the stag bites into Cordell when he tries to apply lotion to his face. I love the markers. "It rubs the lotion on its skin." Pushing back to Will's reflection in the well water at Miriam's rescue site. Delicious stuff as he plans to steal Will's face. A mistake for Mason to mess with Margot while he's got her psychiatrist roped up in the pig pen, and he has no idea that his own psychiatrist is friends with Will Graham. Will knows the level of damage Hannibal is capable of because he saw it himself. Alana cutting Hannibal loose runs parallel to Will cutting him loose in 2x12. Only difference is the number of pigs he's being fed to. "Mason Verger is a pig, and he deserves to be somebody's bacon." Cordell brands Hannibal a "Verger" pig, parallel to his 2x12 role. "Dr. Lecter's the one you want to be feeding to your pigs." Margot's second unborn child sewn in a pig, parallel to Will's 2x12 role. "You must be the baby daddy." All of this solidifies more story for them in a fourth season because Will won't let Hannibal kill Alana. Shedding his humanity won't stop him from loving. She taps into it as the beast starts to settle. He's upset to find out she facilitated torture and death, and the police department brought them to the table. "Almost as ugly as what Mason wants to do to us is the fact that he can do it with the tacit agreement of people sworn to uphold the law." It's one thing to work outside the law for the greater good and kill someone quickly as he was hoping to kill Hannibal. Quite another to work outside the law for a nice payday and hand them over to be tortured and killed. But... "There is no mercy. We make mercy... manufacture it in the parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain." 

Having already adapted, he tells Alana to evolve. "Adapt. Evolve. Become." To save Will, she has to spill blood, and she knows it. He offers her a great solution. If you can't do the killing, just release my wendigo friend. I do believe Alana would "become" in a fourth season. "I was trying to save Will from you." She put more energy in trying to save Will from Hannibal when she should've tried saving Will from Jack. "Could I have ever understood you?" I believe she would in a fourth season because of Will. Margot's scene with Hannibal parallels and pushes. They do a nice-side-by-side scene cut. Cordell is taking Will's face to make a pig look human. Scene cut from Chiyoh (the most stable) to Will and his broken teacup because he's unstable. It shatters as an already broken teacup would, and it won't truly gather itself back together again. it's not supposed to. Will is left standing like Chiyoh was. Between the past and the future, between death and resurrection. Taxidermy. He'll hollow himself of Hannibal, Jack, and Alana. FiIll himself with something else. That's how he's able to let go of his friend for three years... he lets go of both sides of the split-screen. They show both sides of this split-screen in the way they cut scene. The shattered teacup being Hannibal's stag friend cutting into. The police lights being his FBI friend cutting out of. 

As I said before, Will isn't one teacup, he's two. The teacup coming together in 3x2 was for Jack's friend. That's why his face is on the teacup. This pushes to 3x9 when Will looks in the mirror and his face starts chipping away. The teacup that shatters in this scene is for the stag... which Hannibal tried to eat in 3x6. The teacup remains shattered for the purpose of Francis' storyline. To become the lion, he has to build a new body. He can't be fragile anymore. So while he lies about delighting in wickedness, he truly doesn't want to think about Hannibal. His trip to the Lecter estate didn't do the stag any good. He believes Hannibal killed and ate Mischa, that he does this to his family because he just had his head cut into. He needs to differentiate the wendigo branded as a pig and the actual pig. That's why Hannibal was at Mason's table. The difference between the way Hannibal treated Mischa and the way Mason treated Margot. Hannibal surrenders because he won't leave without his family. It's not a matter of Will finding him, it's a matter of Will listening to him. They play the same soundtrack. In 2x13, 3x6, this scene with Will and Hannibal, and the deleted epilogue scene. Thematic, it seems. From 2x13 to 3x6 for the death of the lamb. From 3x7 to the deleted epilogue scene for the resurrected lion. That last gif is the core of Francis' storyline. Stripped down to these three characters, reveals everything. Stuck between humanity with Jack and inhumanity with Hannibal.